Bill Maher commentary from last week’s show worth repeating. Specifically the section starting at 4:03:
An excerpt:
At the Republican debate this week Mike Huckabee said, “Islamofacism is the greatest threat we ever faced.” Really? More then the Nazis? And the Russians? And the Red Coats?
. . .
And you thought that people that were scared of gays and Mexicans were paranoid. Islamic terrorist taking over America? They can barely get across the monkey bars.
Our defense budget is $600 billion a year. They’re using guns they took off a dead Soviet in 1981. I think we can hold Charleston.
We are the most powerful nation on earth, with the largest economy and the best military. And we are made to act the fool by a few thousand cave dwellers who still put out their videos on VHS.
And that’s the problem. Because of the incompetence that goes by the name George Bush we have become the most insecure, paranoid superpower ever. We don’t think we can get anything right anymore. We can’t take care of our own citizens after a hurricane, or plan for our wars, or maintain our infrastructure, and our celebrity rehab facilities obviously aren’t working out.
As a species we are failing at survival trick number one: prioritize the threats.
As Maher notes, the “Islamofacism is the greatest threat America has ever faced” line is wrong on two levels.
First, it’s historically wrong. Back in their day, the German and British armies Americans battled were the most formidable military force of the era. Why are we diminishing the risk those patriots faced by exaggerating today’s threat?
Second, the terrorism hype masks things that we really should be worried about. Don’t get me wrong–terrorism is a real threat which, regrettably, may kill thousands of Americans over the next decade. But in the big picture it’s not the catastrophic event that the vast majority of Americans encounter. Most of us are tested by a health issue, or an auto accident, or crime, or poverty, or some other routine, non-newsworthy hardship.
If you want to worry about something, these are the kinds of things you should be worrying about. Ironically, they are also the issues that some politicians want to avoid discussing. Perhaps that’s why they are always fear mongering with terrorism.
